CJP Lunch Forum with Sarah Augustine & Jacob Schiere

In 2012, the World Council of Churches Central Committee adopted a statement to denounce the Doctrine of Discovery, a body of law and policy designed to appropriate indigenous lands around the globe. Since 2009, many Christian denominations have demonstrated friendship with Indigenous Peoples by adopting policies that repudiate the Doctrine. This presentation will expose the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery by sharing case studies of indigenous peoples struggling to change the laws and policies that systematically deny them access to self determination. It will further explore how the Ecumenical movement can join Indigenous Peoples who seek to dismantle laws and policies that have enforced a brutal form of apartheid for generations.

BiographiesSarah Augustine is an assistant professor of Sociology at Heritage University and the co-director of Suriname Indigenous Health Fund, a private international charity. Sarah led a team of Indigenous and church leaders to draft the World Council of Churches Statement on the doctrine of discovery and its enduring impact on Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted on February 17, 2012. The focus of Sarah’s scholarship is in community directed research and intervention and public engagement in science. A trained mediator, the focus of Sarah’s practice is in group conflict transformation, community engagement, and racial justice. Sarah is a member of Seattle Mennonite Church.

Jacob Schiere is from the Dutch Mennonite Peace Tradition. As a trained architect/engineer he has worked for the past 35 years in profit and not for profit settings (MCC and similar organizations), increasingly in the realm of environmental justice and the impact of modern mining practice in North West Europe and throughout the Americas. In 2011 Jacob participated (through the Suriname Indigenous Health Fund and Christian Peacemaker Teams-Netherlands in a fact finding mission in the Tapanahoni River Basin, home to the Wayana People, in the region of the meeting of the Guyanas and Brazil. The Wayana is being disrupted and are in a state of irreversible intoxication by exploitative development such as mining and hydro power.

With the support of the European Peace Church Network, Jacob was commissioned to participate in the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues (May 2012) and at present he is involved in advocacy for the upcoming World Council of Churches council 2013, exposing the so-called Doctrine of Discovery. Inasmuch as it legitimizes today’s lethal impact of extractive mindset on both the human and natural environment. Hence, mining and the poisoning of the environment are to be read as careless extraction of all creation.